Exploring Photography!

Just4Challenge

Just4Challenge

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Justin
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Hey Chaps and Chapesses!

As a total novice I've got so many questions that it's difficult to know where to start so please excuse any garbled and waffled posts that I may put up!

I run a project for primary schools which takes my experiences as an 'explorer/adventurer' and turns them in to curriculum based activities and lesson plans. because of this it's becoming increasingly important for me to capture images and short videos.

The 'image capture' aspect is one which I have to admit that I've never focused on properly or for long enough to develop an ongoing and reliable solution - and this is where I'm asking for advice.

I want to be able to capture images throughout my exploits which can be used to communicate the feel of an expedition; everything from candid shots during treks to capturing wildlife and landscapes.

Space and weight is always an issue, 'grabability' is really important and I also need to consider my knowledge - or lack of it - and,unfortunately, the cost.

Taking all of this in to consideration I'm lead to believe that a compact camera would be best suited all around, but which one?

I've looked at waterproof/shockproof cameras which would offer me a good level of robustness but I've heard that the quality of the output can be poor. I've also looked at zoom ranges on compacts but again I've been warned that looking for a good zoom range could mean a compromise in other areas of the cameras performance.

In short, I want a camera which is easy to carry, simple to use, resilient to a few knocks and scrapes and cost effective.

The images would be used primarily on websites (interactive schools programme), to illustrate my books and may be used as a backdrop for presentations.

Lots of questions here I know, and I'm expecting lots of opinions, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could offer me sound advice having used a particular type of camera for similar activities.

Thanks LOADS!

Just

PS. I'll soon be posting another question regarding turning my hard-earned snaps in to print... I'm keen to learn!
 
Thou seeketh the holy grail! ;)

A do-everything, portable, robust camera, good for wildlife and landscapes that doesn't cost too much.

No idea what to reccomend, but some observations/opinions.
1) DSLRs generally have longer battery life due to manual zooming and optical viewfinder. However compacts/bridge cameras that run on AA can be more practical sourcing spare batteries in foreign parts
2) There are some good "adventure" compacts out there; water & shock-proof, but they generally don't have a long zoom for water-proofing reasons.
3) The middle-ground would be a CSC - good sensors, range of lenses - can be super-portable with a pancake lens. I don't know anythnig about them though, so can't offer any insights.
 
Just4Challenge said:
Thanks!

Please excuse my ignorance, but what's a CSC?
Click to expand...

Compact System Camera

Thins like the Sony Nex, etc - Where you have a range of lenses that can be changed, but on a camera body that is more like a compact than a traditional SLR.
 
Three sizes of camera:-
Compact - smaller than a pack of fags; slips in your pocket.
Bridge - Bigger than a compact, usually not so pocketable.
SLR or Single lens Reflex - The big buggers that fill your fist and look dead posh.
They do get bigger, and you can get into medium format cameras, that take film, and can be almost the size of a small shoe box without a lens, Then you have 'Field Cameras' that take cut sheet film, like maybe the size of a piece of 15 paper or more, and tend to be like the pictures of your old-time photographer with the big box on a wooden tripod and black cape over thier head. But we dont want to get into all that sort of stuff.

The humble compact is a very under rated device. They are easily carried; easy to use, and can take great pictures.

Great pictures, by the way tend to come from having really interesting stuff to point a camera at, NOT from anuthing inside a camera. Or 'better' cameras don't mean 'better' pictures.... butter photographer means better pictures!

Ultimate image quality of compacts tends not to be so high as on bigger cameras, but can still be very good, and more than adequete for screen display, be that on a web-site or other computer screen, and infact even up to reletively big TV sizes.

What so many people think of limiting with compacts and bridge cameras though is often the lack of manual control they offer.... which is only really any use if you know how to exploit it.... Ie youre photographic expertise and judgement exceeds that of the cameras program.... and the avalable zoom range.

This is over rated in my opinion on both counts. Even if you DO know etter than the camera, you probably wont disagree with what the camera wants to do all that often, in general picture taking.

Next; some of the best photo's of all time were taken by photographers using a single fixed focal length lens camera. To soom in.... they got closer to what they wanted to take a photograph of. To zoom out... they walked further away!

Zoom range is useful... not essential. And on a compact, typical 3x 'optical' zoom between wide angle and telephoto, is not going to make a huge difference to how tight or wide you can frame your subject any way.

My old 35mm film camera came with a fixed 50mm 'standard' lens. This was not hugely limiting, but a 28-80, wide to tele zoom was the done thing, and has about the same field of view range as the 18-55 that came with my Nikon digital, or that of my kids 3x optical zoom compacts. 50mm got used seldom, and in fact little between fully wide 28 and fully tele 80 was ever used, and it was never 'enough'... daftly as the 50 would usually frame what I wanted, until I got a zoom, one way or another!

On a compact, cramming as much funtionality into as little space as possible; personally I'd say a 3x optical zoom is 'enough' to get a camera that actually has optics and reasonable chance of getting reasonable image quality Much more than that though, to get more into same space, they tend to compromise how robust they are.

I have used a 'cheap' £50 digital compact with NO optical lens and no optical zoom, for ten years. Its been chucked about off-roading in Land-Rovers, thrown around the work shop, dropped on the beach and generally abused, and still works well.... its functionality is limited, but it has proved very durable, and taken many pretty decent pictures, many of which I have used for web-display; illustrating Land-Rover Mechanics of reporting off-road adventures... and the image quality was still above that I could use on a web-site, I had to shrink images to a lower quality.

For what you suggest then... I'd be inclined not to get too bogged down in the detail.

Go get a "cheap" digital compact, and go start snapping.... see what you get... note what you DONT get, look at how you use the camera, and use that to inform where, if any improvements may be needed.

Before getting a better camera.... remembering advice above, its the better photographer that takes better pictures, not the better camera.... get a tripod, even a mini-one, then learn to use the self timer, and other functions of the camera and get the most you can out of it.

When THAT isn't enough.. then is the time to look for something else. But informed of what may be more or less important to you.

Here and now is you're not using a camera, dont expect to jump straight in and get pro-grade pics straight away, regardless of what camera you get... so just take it steady and learn as you go.

And a Cheap digi-compact? Well you can pic up something pretty reasonable in the Super-Market for £50... and treat it as a disposeable learning excersise.

Anything is better than nothing, and even a cheap £10 'toy' camera can be useful, and offer a lot of learning, for the money. So just get something, and start taking pics with it.... see how you go.
 
Hey Mike!

Thanks for the reply - brilliant!

I think your reply concisely sums up other peoples view in that capturing the image and getting used to framing a shot etc is far more important than the capability and functionality of the camera.

Taking everyone's opinions and suggestions in to account I think I'll go for a compact and get used to it. Hidden away in a drawer somewhere, or a rucksack, I've got a Samsung PL121 that I've never really used so it's time to break it out and find out where the 'on' button is.

I think like may other people I was getting too hung up on having to have a camera with every 'bell and whistle' in order to get a good shot, but you're right - just get out there and do it!

Thanks again

Just
 
Not a lot wrong with too many of them, mate.
I like the 'Does What it says on the badge'... but then I'm a Landy-Man! Trike cought my eye too!... anyway, thing is most of those pics are 'fit for purpose'.
There was a reason for them, there was an interest, you have caught that interest, and in many of them caught it damn well, with a little thought to get an interesting angle, or focus composition on whatever was the interest.
There plenty there to be built on, and nothing yet that screams you need a better camera.
Couple that jump out at me: first, your shot Matt Hernandez, playing guitar. Indoor shot, back-lit against the window. The back-lighting has fooled the cameras internal meter into thinking the scene is brighter than it really is. Knowing your camera and its settings, there may be a 'back-lit' mode that would have offered some exposure compensation and brightened the whole scene, or suggested 'fill-in' flash to chuck a little light into Matt's face and bring out a bit of detail. Similarly your 'Life's a beach' shot of the two dogs, into the sunset.
So a little research on your camera, and maybe a better-photo's for beginners guide, and there's plenty to still be got out the camera you got. Little tripod and knowing how to use the self timer, I suspect even more.
Couple of pics that might be minutely better if you took them with a fancy camera; 'on the water' the red canoo, and similar shots. If you were using a big Digital SLR, you might have been able to use a polarising filter, that would have reduced the water reflections, and saturated colour a bit more. This might, and i say MIGHT have darkened the water a bit and made it look a tad less murky, and brightened up the bright colour of the canoe a tad.. then the larger lens of bigger camera might have allowed a wider appature, that would shorten the focal range.... basically, canoe and canoist wmight have remained in sharp focus, but back-ground gone blurry out of focus, drawing the viewer attension more acutely on the subject..... BUT better kit that makes this kind of stuff possible.... doesn't garantee it, you have to get the picture first, and that one, is pretty damn good to start with, and small 'improvement' that might have been found, probably not the difference between damn good and award winning, and certainly not worth risking not getting the shot from having to faff about with big camera and funny filters for small gain you might have got!
For pics like that, then I think that a compact is probably your perfect companion.... end of the day, your essentially taking candid photo's from the thick of the action. You don't want or need anything cumbersome intruding into that, and what you are getting is good.
So, go do a little reading to get more from what you have... and go get more, mate.... lots more!
 
Thanks for the feedback Mike - much apprecaited.

I totally agree with finding out a little more that the camera can do so I'm about to download the manual (I hate manuals!).

There is a self-timer mode on the camera, but what do you see as it's key use other than taking shots of my own ugly mug?

You're right in that having a cumbersome DSLR would have hampered my ability to shoot so I think that I may be on the right lines for now - I just have to do more of it!

The reason that I was thinking of a DSLR was to shoot wildlife. As a lifelong country sports person I'm quite adept at getting close to nature and have reached a point where I would like to swap one type of shot for another - if you know what I mean. A little research in to the area of cameras with suitable lenses has told me one thing - it's not really cost effective for me!

You mentioned reading more - is there anything in particular with regards to a book or magazine that you would suggest?

Thanks for your input; I appreciate your time

Just
 
OK... books... I cant really recomend any; all mine ar archaic pre-digital, though principles remain & most translate. Of whats out there though, some concentrate and go into great detail on the camera and its controls others concern themselves with the asthetic of composition. Then you have all the variouse areas of specialisation, and many authors have thier own leanings, be it landscapes; fasion, sport or whatever.

End of the day, you want some 'ideas' about the business, and a few basic principles and to not take anything as gospel, just a guide, and carry on doing what you are.

Tripod & timer..... purpose of the tripod is to take the camera out of your shakey hands so the lens don't move around. Subjects can bounce around as much as they like, but bolting the camera down eliminates one of the two variables.

And this is important to reduce blur or camera shake. If anything moves in the image during the 'exposure' time... then it 'blurs' accross censor cells... so you dont get crisp edges. More stuff moved in the frame, more blurred picture will be.

So, two main things effect blurr.... shutter speed is the first. Faster the exposure is made, then the less time anythng has to shift in the scene, so sharper it will be. Next, magnification.... closer you are to any subject, or the more zoom you have on the camera, so the more any object fills the frame.... and so the more of the frame any movement in the subject will blurr accross. Make sense?

OK... to avoid blur then, you want to avoid slow shutter speeds, especially in close ups or using longer zoom reaches.

So, if you stick the camera on a tripod..... you eliminate one possible source of blurr, your hands trembling..... BUT you will still need to press the button... and that can move the camera... so in olden days we used a cable release cord, so we didn't actually have to touch the camera, OR we set the self timer, so we pressed the shutter, checked through the view finder then stood back and let the clockwork timer spring the shutter for us, without risk of shaking the camera with our hands.

This trick then is great for getting pictures in dimmer conditons, when cameras automatic exposure system is likely to select a very long shutter speed... but even when light is good and you can use a faster shutter, it can still remove potential shake and vibration and help get a crisper sharper picture.... if you have the time to set it up, of course.

Which is metioning a few basics you may or may not be aware of....

1; METERING
Great guide on here about it; but basically before you take a picture your camera measures how much light is being reflected from the scene you point it at. And its not very smart, and fundemental flaw in the system is that the meter presumes that all scenes, on average are 18% grey, if you mix up all the light and dark bits.... so if you are taking pictures in snow.... they all come out dark, becouse your scene is naturally lighter than 18% grey on average....if you are taking shots in a cave... they come out all grey... becouse your scene is naturally darker than 18% grey.

Know this... see this in your pictures, and on your camera you PROBABLY have an 'Exposure compensation' setting that will allow you to change that calibration point of 18% up or down a couple of 'stops' to correct such errors.

May also be some special settings, like a low-light setting for indoor or night-time shots that does the same thing.

2. EXPOSURE (theres a good guide in tutorial section to this)
Three variables in an exposure. ISO 'sensitivity'; Shutter-Speed and lens aperture.
- The more sensitive the film/sensor higher the ISO number, and the less light it needs to make a picture. But more 'niosy' or granualted it will tend to be.
- The shutter is a tap, lets in or stops letting in light. If its open a long time, it will let a lot of light in, but as mentioned, can risk motion blur. Fast shutter freezes motion, reduces risk of motion blur.
- The apature,m is a valve, wider it is open, more light gets through it, more closed it is, less light gets through it. Important thing about aperture though is that the smaller the aparture, the greater the depth of focus. This can be used to focus viewer attension on parts of a scene, or all of it.

Remember my mention of the kyak? If you had a camera that could have used a wider aparture, then the amount of the picture in crisp focus around the paddlers face would have been less, and the boat in the back-ground would have gone soft and blurry....

But, that wide aparture would have let in more light, so picture would also have gone very bright, if not washed out completely 'over-exposed'... except, you could compensate, and your cameras auto-exposure system probably wouyld any way, by increasing the shutter speed.

Thats the balence; for any given light level metered by the camera, IT will decide what ISO sensitivity to set, what shutter speed and what aparture, you can change any or all three and get the same 'exposure value' and a correct exposure, but totally different picture.

And this is the big danger of books... knowing this, underatanding this, and trying to take control of them! Wanting to take direct control of the camera settings, having dome your home-work and found out how they work and what they do, is what leads many to want fancier SLR cameras that allow more manual control... in fact, there is a awful lot of 'manual control' to be found in even the most humble point and press cameras, IF you know what the different exposure modes are for and what they are doing, and you use them in the right situations, and NOT trying to get cleverer than the camera... you probably dont have such risk of fouling it up as easy!

Eg: Portrait mode will probably err on lower ISO setting for nice grain/noise free skin tones, and wider apatures to blur out back-grounds, and middling hand-hold shutter speeds.

Sport-Mode; will probably err on higer ISO settings to allow faster shutter speeds, to freeze motion, and err on middling apatures for acceptable depth of field.

Land-Scape mode, will probably err on lower ISO settings to get crisp, shap grain free detail, smaller appatures to help maximise depth of focus and detail in the scene and err on lower shutter speeds, presuming mountains dont move vert much!

So if you know what the settings do, and where to use what sort of settings, and you have an AE mode that will give those sort of settings for you... you dont HAVE to actually select them yourself.... and IF you have discovered that a little blur in an action shotconveys motion.... and want to use a slightly slower shutter.... then hmm... maybe the portrait program will give that to you!

Hence read your manual, and read up on the basics, get a little tripod and learn to use the self timer..... you will get far more from what you already have, with that then you will, just buying another camera, to not know how to get the best out of either!
 
I have to say gentlemen that this is the most helpful forum that I've ever joined! When i stumbled across this place on a google search i really did come up trumps.

Thank you so much for the input. I have taken everything on board and I will refer to the answers (and further reading) frequently until I get the nack of it.

In the last few days I've started carrying my camera everywhere just in case - but I haven't once clicked the shutter yet!

Thanks again

Just
 
Hi Guys!

PLease excuse my lack of involvement on the forum; I've been a little tied up with trips.

I did take some of the advice offered on the page about camera choice etc and decided to stick with a digital compact - at least for the time being.

I've just got back from another little expedition and the compact served me well. I think, as was pointed out, that a DSLR camera would have been too prohibitive and the thought of just getting it out to take snaps would have lead to many missed opportunities.

Here's a shot from the last trip http://500px.com/photo/43213712

Thanks again for the advice

Just
 
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